Water has been commercially cleaned by magnetic seeding and separation technologies for many years.
A known commercial use of magnetic treatment technologies is the “Sirofloc” technology used in Australia to clean drinking water. This process uses the absorption capacity of magnetite to remove color and other pollutants from water. The spent magnetic seed material (magnetite) settles out by gravity in a clarifier and then is pumped to a cleaning step so the magnetite can be reused. Present efforts are to use this technology to clean municipal wastewater.
Another known commercial application of magnetic treatment is the “Comag” process described in Wechsler U.S. Pat. No. 6,099,738, which is designed to remove phosphate from municipal wastewater. This process has a high gradient field magnetic collector that uses powerful electromagnets. Once the collector becomes loaded with solids, it is backwashed with air and water to flush the magnetic seed material to a cleaning process. The cleaned magnetic seed material is then reused in the treatment process. The electromagnets in the Comag system have to be de-energized for cleaning. The cleaning process interrupts the flow of water for treatment and high solids loading limits the ability to backwash the system.
The present invention relates to the use of magnetic seeding and separation technologies to correct water treatment problems found at municipal water treatment facilities, specifically wastewater.